SYNOPSIS

From Nahid Persson, the filmmaker of the award-winning Prostitution Behind the Veil, comes an intimate portrait of a polygamist family in a rural Iranian village. Persson reveals the intricacies of the relationships between the four wives, their husband, their astoundingly free-spoken mother-in-law and their numerous children. Sometimes humorous and often heartbreaking, this film follows the daily lives of the wives whose situation has turned them into both bitter rivals and co-conspirators against their abusive husband.

Persson’s camera unobtrusively and beautifully captures the range of the family’s interactions – from peaceful, pastoral scenes of a family picnic, to the temporary chaos caused by a broken faucet in the kitchen, to a furtive, whispered conversation between two wives about the latest beating. The women’s work – making bread, weaving carpets, milking and herding the sheep – provide the background to their frank conversations. Avoiding sensationalism and sentimentality, this film provides unique insights into the practice of polygamy and its effect on the women involved.

PRESS

"Challenge[s] both Western assumptions about Islamic women's oppression and the patriarchal social structures that shape their daily lives. The four women manage their relationships with each other with a keen sense of dignity as well as of the interdependence of their interests and those of their children."

Patricia WhiteChair, Film & Media Studies, Swarthmore College

“Highly Recommended for classes in social and gender relations. Anyone interested in women’s rights and family life around the world will find this documentary thought provoking … Often funny, other times sorrowful, but at all times heartfelt, Four Wives – One Husband is beautifully shot in vivid cinematography.” – EMRO

Malcom L. RigsbyEducational Media Reviews Online

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

Honorable Mention, Society for Visual Anthropology Film Festival

Silverdocs Documentary Festival

Denver International Film Festival

Los Angeles Film Festival

Tiburon International Film Festival

Locarno Int’l Film Festival, Critics' Week

Recontres International Documentary Film Festival

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Born in Iran, Nahid Persson immigrated to Sweden in the 1980's. After studying microbiology, she founded a local radio station. In 1993, Persson began her filmmaking career and enrolled at Film- och TV Skolan. Her film, PROSTITUTION BEHIND THE VEIL, won first prize at the Marseille Festival International du Documentaire. Persson's other credits include MY MOTHER: A PERSIAN PRINCESS, THE END OF EXILE, THE LAST DAYS OF LIFE, and THE QUEEN AND I. (7/12)

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My Stolen Revolution

A student activist in Iran’s 1979 revolution that overthrew the dictatorial Shah, Nahid Persson Sarvestani fled to Sweden with her baby after Islamists seized power and began persecuting leftists who had been their revolutionary allies. Three decades later, events in Iran inspire Nahid to revisit that part of her life. Prompted by brutal crackdowns on anti-government protests in 2009 and long-suppressed guilt for abandoning a younger brother to imprisonment and death, the internationally acclaimed filmmaker locates and reunites with five female activists who survived torture and terror in the Islamist regime’s jails. Now living in exile, the women share gripping accounts of how their jailers tried to break them physically and spiritually, and describe what sustained them during these horrible ordeals. With the support of these stalwart survivors, Sarvestani finds answers to haunting questions about her brother’s last days. Shifting skillfully between past and present, this deeply personal documentary is an essential resource for understanding Iran today.